According to Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, Ottawa’s plan to restrict the use of conditional sentences to non-violent offenders who serve less than two years will result in a $145-million per year price tag being downloaded to the provinces. “We will have fewer people supervised for a shorter period of time, and we’re going to have a significant increase in the average cost,” said Page. “We should be getting a [cost] study like this on every aspect of Bill C-10 [the omnibus crime bill] from the government.”

Page is right that the government should properly and publicly estimate the costing on this and other bills before MPs vote on them. Failing to do so has given this government a black eye on matters ranging from the tab for the G8 and G20 summits in 2010, to the yet-to-be-completed purchase of F-35 fighter jets. It is also hypocritical to trumpet austerity in Ottawa while downloading costs to the provinces, as Bill C-10 would do. And at the very least, legislators at all levels should know what they’re in for, so they can plan — or protest — accordingly.

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But sentencing is, of course, not simply about cost. It is about public safety, deterrence and punishment. There are many arguments that favour incarceration over community sentences. An offender can less easily re-offend if he or she is behind bars. The thought of ending up in prison is far less appealing than sporting an ankle bracelet for two years less a day. And I doubt a rape victim will feel the same sense of justice if her aggressor is cooling his heels at home, rather than bunking down behind bars.

In 2009-2010, according to Statistics Canada, out of 50,000 “crimes of violence” where a person was found or pled guilty, over 2,500 conditional sentences were imposed, including 205 cases of sexual assault and three murders. Over the years, many egregious cases have made the headlines, including that of R. v. Fice in 2005, in which the Supreme Court overturned a conditional sentence awarded to a woman who had beaten and attempted to strangle her mother, and that of Bhalru and Kosa, in which a conditional sentence was upheld for two men who killed a pedestrian while street racing in 2000.

Other non-violent cases also make you question the wisdom of conditional sentences. On February 12, 2012, Renee Marie Boudreau received two years less a day, to be served in the community, after pleading guilty to failing to provide the necessities of life, mischief and breach of probation. In 2009, she disconnected a machine that monitored the oxygen level of a seven-year-old severely disabled boy who was in her care, because the machine’s noise was “annoying” her and interrupting her sleep. Later that night, the boy stopped breathing and died. Incredibly, when this happened, Boudreau was in breach of probation related to another conditional sentence, imposed for scalding an elderly man (who was illegally in her care) who also died.

Given such stories, it’s no wonder the Tories are banking on public support for Bill C-10. The notion that conditional sentences could apply to any situation where people lose their lives is repugnant, and brings justice into disrepute.

By removing judicial discretion to impose conditional sentences, the Tories are turning justice over to Parliament — and they are probably making the right bet. For despite the public’s contempt for the political class, judges are unaccountable to the electorate, a fact conservatives have not hesitated to underscore before. In 2004, now-Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told the House of Commons that successive Liberal governments had “allowed judges to become the most powerful force in setting social policy in Canada. Whether it is by allowing convicted [murderers] to vote or by changing fundamental institutions like marriage, this government has substituted the supremacy of an elected Parliament with unelected judges.”

The Harper Conservatives are bent on taking back the reins of justice, no matter the price. While they should be upfront about what the public will pay, they should be commended for standing up for their principles, and for victims of crime. Like political courage, justice doesn’t come cheap.